SGD Webinar: Making sense, making it right: Thinking about sexual consent in tertiary settings
Hosted by the PsySSA Sexuality and Gender Division
Webinar Details:
- Date: 11 August 2026
- Time: 18:00 – 19:30
- 1 General CPD Point
- Platform: Online via Zoom
Making sense, making it right: Thinking about sexual consent in tertiary settings
This webinar is intended for mental health professionals who:
- are interested in questions of gender justice and sexual consent
- work with survivors or perpetrators of sexual misconduct
- who are interested in thinking through questions of justice and healing for survivors
- who are interested in thinking through questions of redress, remorse and rehabilitation for perpetrators.
About the Workshop:
Universities are “imagined communities”: they both reflect and challenge the broader zeitgeist; they are spaces where student and other cultures create new norms; and they are transitional spaces, where new students enter and old students leave. As such they are in constant flux, and this offers opportunities to bring change. In this space, ideas about sexual consent are circulating, contested and re/imagined on a daily basis. In some instances, consent is violated, and institutional processes are invoked to adjudicate these. Universities must find ways to “make sense” of sexual misconduct and “make it right” for survivors, and for the broader university community/ies.
While many universities spell out sexual consent in their policies, and often take staff and students through workshops, discussions and mobilisations which spell out the gold standard of sexual consent (it is must be mutual, enthusiastic, ongoing, non-exploitative, verbal and explicit), actual sexual consent discussions and negotiations often fall far short of this standard. In this gap lies a plethora of misunderstandings, miscommunications, manipulations, motives and maneuvers, sometimes resulting in events of alleged misconduct, which become disputed by the parties concerned.
Against this backdrop the webinar will bring two psychologists and a facilitator together to talk about experiences of working with students in “making sense” of sexual consent dynamics, with a view to “making it right” – not only in formal disciplinary processes but in work to stimulate institutional conversations on sexual consent.
About the Presenters:
Dr Kerry Frizelle
Dr Kerry Frizelle is a registered Counselling Psychologist and holds a PhD in Education. She is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Educational Psychology at the University of the Western Cape. As an award-winning critical educator, Kerry is deeply committed to education as a vehicle for social transformation and the promotion of more just and inclusive societies. Inspired by the work of critical educators such as Paulo Freire and bell hooks, Kerry believes that education should be grounded in an ethic of care, compassion, and a fundamental belief in people’s capacity for growth and transformation. Their approach to teaching and scholarship is centred on developing critical consciousness, enabling individuals to question, challenge, and transform the social systems and structures in which they are embedded. Through their work, they seek to cultivate educational spaces that foster human connection, agency, and the possibility of becoming more fully human.
Dr Angeline Stephens
Angeline Stephens, is the PsySSA Chair of the Sexuality and Gender Division. She is a mental health practitioner in private practice, after having worked in student mental health at the University of KwaZulu-Natal for 13 years. She works within a critical, feminist, decolonial framework that recognises the intersections and interconnectedness between person and historical, political, social, cultural and economic contexts. She has extensive experience within the therapeutic context in the areas of trauma, violence, and healing. Her research interests centre around qualitative methodologies that explore social citizenship in the South African context. She is particularly interested in the intersections of gender, race, and sexual identities among marginalised people and how these intersections play out in experiences of social citizenship. She has a PhD in Psychology from UCT.
Pierre Brouard
Pierre is a Clinical Psychologist and a Research Associate of the Centre for Sexualities, AIDS and Gender (CSA&G) at the University of Pretoria (UP) where he worked for 25 years. At UP he is also an Extraordinary Lecturer of the Centre for Human Rights. He sits on the Executive of the Sexuality and Gender Division of the Psychological Society of South Africa and is a Board member of the Professional Association for Transgender Health South Africa. His interests and work include sexualities, gender, human rights, transformation, diversity and social justice.